engleski

Croatian cultural tourism policy: Strategic development

In 2003, the Ministry of Tourism initiated development of the cultural tourism strategy recognizing firstly, the potential that cultural tourism offers in terms of diversifying the sun and sea based products and secondly, the fact that significant latent demand for this kind of product already exists among our visitors, with half of the Croatian summer tourists participating in some kind of cultural activities, but are mostly dissatisfied with what is offered in this respect. Development of the national cultural tourism strategy was based on the ambitious research agenda including a number of primary research: national cultural consumption survey to estimate the pattern of cultural consumption of domestic population including cultural consumption during their travels, a survey of cultural institutions (museums, galleries, events) to estimate their readiness for inclusion in cultural tourism and regional forums with participants from cultural and tourism sectors and representatives from local and regional governments to estimate their attitudes to cultural tourism developments and critical issues that have to be resolved in order to start cooperating in cultural tourism initiatives. In addition, a detailed analysis of Croatian main target markets was conducted to ascertain the current and potential demand for this kind of product. The research revealed several key issues: lack of political support and goodwill, lack of know-how in both cultural and tourism sectors, wealth of cultural resources that do not function well as cultural tourism products and, finally, lack of marketing coordination and information flow. Thus, five strategic priorities were defined: creating supporting climate for investment in cultural tourism product development, setting up a formal organizational structure at national and regional levels backed by the less informal partnerships, increasing the level of knowledge and skills among both cultural and tourism professionals, creating cultural tourism products with focus on better interpretation and presentation of those resources already popular among visitors and creation of regional 'flagship' cultural tourism attractions, and finally on improving local and regional marketing.

cultural tourism; cultural tourism strategy; Croatia

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